Conversations

During each of the six breakout sessions throughout the weekend, a large number of conversations will take place. This site will help you organize your plan for the weekend and provide the relevant information for each conversation. After signing in, search through the conversations below and mark the sessions you are interested in to populate your personal schedule on the right (or below if on your mobile phone).

Project-based learning gives
teachers the opportunity to bring learning closer to students' real
lives. But how can we make sure the final projects we ask students
to create both require them to use real-world skills and spark
their curiosity, inquiry, and imaginations? Instead of asking
students to make projects that approximate real-life for the
future, how can we ask them to do meaningful assessments that
matter for real life today?

How do you bring the most innovative teachers in a school district together to network with experts in education, industry, and technology to shift instructional practice? You Create Something Great! Join the conversation about a think tank that ignited passion and enthusiasm for innovation with instruction.

Our conversation will address the missing yet essential elements of most schools’ curricular programs: innovation and social justice. We’ll discuss how the two can be combined in a Social Entrepreneurs class in which students merge their own passions with a need in their community to develop a student-run business.

The majority of human life and activity—and the vast majority of adult life and activity—happen beyond our schools' walls. Taking this as a starting point, how can we put our students in touch with the living and doing that's happening in the world? Like, for real.

One suburban Colorado neighborhood school pushes the boundaries of transformative educational. Here we outline our challenge and attempt to answer three questions: Why? Why is this challenge a worthy endeavor? What? What are the obstacles in a traditional neighborhood public school? How? How are these obstacles overcome?

In this conversation we will discuss what happens when the innovations don’t succeed in the way you thought they would. Join Erin Klein and Brett Clark as we discuss the ups and downs of innovation. During the down times how do you retain buy-in, rebuild trust, and move forward?

Conversation Session 1 10–11:30am

Cross-Pollination Lunch 11:30am–1pm

Join us for a session of “lightning presentations” delivered by EduCon participants. Each presenter will have five minutes to share an idea, broken down into twenty slides, which automatically advance every fifteen seconds.